


SWOT: Possible Outcomes of Initiating a Relationship with Richard Hendricks

by aunt_zelda



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Bisexuality, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Time, M/M, Masturbation, Panic Attacks, Post-Season/Series Finale, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post S2 finale, Jared goes to check in with Richard, who is hiding in his room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	SWOT: Possible Outcomes of Initiating a Relationship with Richard Hendricks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joycecarolnotes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joycecarolnotes/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, genyys!
> 
> I hope I hit everything you wanted, and managed to write Jared effectively. I love him so much, but he's difficult to write accurately. The way these characters talk is so distinct, I'd never attempt writing a spec script of the show to be honest. 
> 
> There is a brief reference to suicide, about the household's thoughts about Richard post-finale, but it's not huge enough that I thought it warranted an official tag.   
> There are multiple allusions and references to Jared's terrible past, mostly with Gavin Belson. I'm not entirely certain how to classify it, due to my prompt details. 
> 
> If anyone feels I should add new tags, do not hesitate to let me know and I will add new tags. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to my beta, grammarsaveslives, for helping me at such odd hours.

Jared knocks on Richard’s door after what he estimates is enough time for Richard to decide how to react to the news that he has been ousted as CEO of Pied Piper, but not enough time to begin enacting drastic measures. 

“Who is it?” Richard moans from beyond the door. 

“It’s Jared, Richard!” Jared says, in what he hopes is a reassuring tone. 

“What do you want?” Richard asks, sounding weaker than usual. 

“Just checking in. You’ve had a rather … exciting day. I believe the phrase ‘emotional rollercoaster’ would not be inaccurate.” Jared smiles tensely at the doorframe. 

“I’m not going to off myself. You can go tell everyone that.”

Jared decides that now is not the time to inform Richard that the others are busy getting drunk and high and placing bets on whether Richard would be found dead in the morning, either by his own hand or his stressed heart giving out. 

“They didn’t send me here, Richard, I came on my own.” Technically true. Technically not a lie. Jared is not lying to Richard. Enough people have misled Richard in the past few months, lured him along like a target of the Pied Piper bizarrely enough. 

After a pause long enough to worry Jared, Richard’s voice returns. 

“Come in, I feel stupid shouting through the door.”

Jared carefully hurries inside, shutting the door behind himself.

The room is dark, save for the dull glow around the window from the seam where the curtains don’t quite cover the glass, letting in the street lamp’s light. Richard is curled up in his bed, a huddled mass beneath his blankets. A car drives past outside, headlights briefly illuminating Richard’s face. 

Jared pretends he didn’t see the shining trails on Richard’s cheeks. He isn’t going to taunt Richard for showing emotion in a time of crisis, and he suspects that Richard would rather no one find out about this. 

“Richard, I’m ... I’m so sorry,” Jared says. “I know that –”

“Please, don’t.” Richard buries his face against his pillow. “I can’t … I can’t think about it right now. I can’t process people telling me they’re sorry about it.”

Jared nods, and waits. Maybe Richard will tell him what to do. He hopes that’s the case, because prodding Richard for commands is difficult enough in their day-to-day proceedings, when Richard is in great emotional turmoil it’s nearly impossible. 

“Can you come up here?” Richard asks, after several moments of silence. 

Jared awkwardly clambers up to the bunk, knocking his leg against the support beams on the way. He kicks off his shoes before crawling onto the mattress properly, and perches on the edge, waiting. After a few more moments he reaches over and pats Richard on the arm. 

“This is ridiculous.” Richard whispers. 

“You’ve undergone some very intense emotional stress today, Richard. How you deal with that is nobody’s business but your own.” 

Richard makes a muffled contemplative sound. 

Jared is about to clarify that if Richard’s methods of coping involve prostitutes or stealing a car, then that is the company's business, but then Richard speaks, interrupting Jared’s wild daydreams of Richard holding up a bank and driving away in Erlich’s Aviato van. 

“Could you, um … I mean, if you’re ok with it, you don’t have to, obviously, I wouldn’t want you to do something that made you uncomfortable, because I already feel like shit and I wouldn’t want you to feel like shit too and I just –”

“Just ask me, Richard,” Jared interrupts the panicked babbling.

Richard heaves a deep breath and when he exhales, it’s more of a sob. “Would you, um, could you, please, just … just hold me?” Richard chokes out.

Jared’s heart stops and his stomach lurches. 

Richard rolls over, shoulders shaking now, sobbing audibly. “Forget it!” he splutters. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry …”

Jared carefully lies down beside Richard and extends on of his lanky arms around Richard’s chest. Richard squirms, closing the distance between them. Subsequently, Jared wraps both his arms around Richard’s skinny frame. (Richard isn’t eating enough; Jared makes a mental note to buy groceries again; energy drinks and chips are not proper sustenance for Richard.)

For a long time, they just stay there, side by side, Richard shaking slightly as he cries. 

“I’ve never felt so fucking helpless.” Richard manages to say at last. “And I think you, out of everyone here, can probably understand that the best.” 

Jared murmurs in agreement.

Richard lapses back into silence. 

Jared thinks about Hooli, and Gavin Belson, and bile rises in his throat. He remembers, vividly, the afternoon when Gavin, bored and bouncing ideas over a conference call, waved Jared over from his corner and told him to get on his hands and knees. Jared had, and Gavin had used him as a footstool for the rest of the afternoon. No one else had seen. Jared still isn’t certain which was worse, the fact that any of his co-workers could have walked in and seen him like that, or the fact that nobody else bore witness to it but Gavin. 

It wasn’t sexual, Jared knows that much. He wonders sometimes, late at night, whether it would have been easier to process if it had been. He’d have never gone to HR of course - their treatment of the women sexually harassed at the Hooli offices had shown Jared what a useless division they were. But he would have had the option at least, known what he was supposed to do, had he not worked for Gavin Belson at Hooli. 

Richard has been Jared’s CEO, his boss, for the past few frantic months at Pied Piper. Richard has given him purpose, hope, an exhilarating and ever-changing lifestyle. Not like the dull “innovations” at Hooli, so scripted and planned, sleekly corporate and predictable. Life at Pied Piper is gritty and often times crass and filthy and overworked and overstressed and against impossible deadlines (and today, on fire) but it is real, it is tangible, and it is something Jared needs. 

Richard, Jared slowly remembers, is no longer his CEO. No longer his boss. Sexual relations could …

Jared clamps down on that thought hard, and shoves it viciously away. Now is not the time for indulging such vulgar responses to Richard’s vulnerability. Instead, he decides to ask the question that’s been nagging at his brain for the past few hours. 

“So, how did the case with Hooli go from ending in their favor to ending in yours?” 

Richard tries and fails to laugh, but the attempt is a good sign. “Actually, it’s kind of a funny story. The whole reason they threw out the suit, that Pied Piper is still mine, is because I hired you.”

Jared stares at the back of Richard’s head. “What?”

“Wrongful employment contracts, apparently Hooli was full of those. Mine, yours, everybody’s … the Judge said it was all under scrutiny now. Because we hired you and Hooli complained.” Richard turns over. “So, really, you’re the reason I still have Pied Piper.”

Pride surges through Jared’s body. He feels like he could fly, go track down Gavin Belson and punch him, do absolutely anything in the world. He feels like he could lean forward right now, and kiss Richard, because he is the reason Richard still has his company, still has control of the genius program he coded, it’s all because of Jared. 

Maybe it’s just his imagination, but Richard certainly looks poised for a kiss. Something about his face and his eyes, a hopeful little expression that Jared hasn’t seen much before. 

Jared suspects he’s just projecting, and scoots back a few inches on the mattress. 

“Do you want me to stay up here until you fall asleep?” he offers. “Or, I could sleep on the floor again, or –”

“Stay, please?” Richard looks incredibly mournful. “Sorry, again, I just … I don’t want to be alone right now.”

Jared nods, and turns so he’s staring at the ceiling instead of staring at Richard. 

After a few minutes, Richard’s familiar slight snore begins. Jared smiles, closes his eyes, and falls asleep. 

~*~

They don’t talk about it, the next morning. Jared returns to his room at the neighbor’s house. The neighbor is currently packing his ferret cages into a car and yells that Jared had better clear out his belongings before the new tenants arrive. Jared wonders how long he can hide in the guesthouse before the new tenants discover him. He once spent weeks living at Hooli before anyone realized he hadn’t yet found an apartment yet, and that was only because the janitorial staff found him curled up in one of the supply closets and then ran screaming about ghosts haunting the third floor. 

Then Jared does what he always does when he feels trapped by a problem, or has a free moment. 

He makes a chart. 

Erlich’s house is full of them, as is Jared’s new room in the guesthouse he rents … well, rented, from their ferret-breeding neighbor. 

Jared assembles a SWOT chart, drawing the quadrants with his best markers. He attaches double-sided tape to index cards and places them strategically. Then he begins to write. 

Initiating a sexual relationship with Richard is something that could lead to many benefits, but also includes many risks. Richard could be reinstated as CEO, thus rendering their sexual relationship into one of boss and subordinate, a sexual harassment case waiting to destroy Pied Piper. Richard could crack under the added stress of maintaining a relationship. Jared could become triggered by scenarios similar to his past arrangements with powerful men. The media could get wind of it and spin it as some kind of salacious gossip piece that would ruin Richard and Pied Piper’s credibility in the toxic masculinity landscape of Silicon Valley. Jared could lose everything.

Jared stares at the crowd of taped notecards, every fearful outcome laid out in succinct script before him. 

He moves onto the benefits. Those are more enjoyable to brainstorm, for obvious reasons. A relationship could provide both himself and Richard with more happiness in life, more intimacy in a touch-starved environment. It would take Richard’s mind off the takeover, for a while. Jared would no longer have to worry about where he sleeps at night. Sex, which has seldom been a pleasant activity for Jared with partners, could be very nice with Richard. Over the past few months Jared has done everything in his power to make Richard happy, and found that when he does so, he feels happy as well. 

The morning passes, and the SWOT board grows. Jared removes and adds notecards. He moves them to different quadrants. He reaches a standstill.

Some new crisis develops over at the house, and Jared is summoned to assist. The SWOT board waits for him, propped against the wall in view of his bed. 

~*~

Over the next week, Jared takes an increasingly perverse sense of pleasure in the fact that Richard needs him, and keeps asking for him to assist with procedures. Richard needs _him_. Richard thinks he has worth. Richard knows he has worth, after the Hooli lawsuit was thrown out mostly due to Jared’s hiring papers. Jared has worth. 

A few mornings after the creation of the SWOT board, Jared indulges himself by masturbating. It’s a rarity for him, he seldom allows himself the time and leisure for such activities, but the stress-relief is much needed. Richard’s face keeps looming in his mind, Richard in bed not three inches away, begging Jared to stay the night beside him. 

Afterwards, shame engulfs Jared. How dare he think of Richard in such a context, how dare he create a board dedicated to imagining sexual acts with Richard. 

_This guy fucks!_ echoes in Jared’s mind, over and over again for the rest of the day. Russ Hanneman saw him, and had seen right through him, seen into the disgusting, dirty, hidden thoughts Jared keeps hidden even from himself most of the time. 

Jared tries and fails to distract himself with the paperwork for re-hiring the programmers. Carla returns, insisting on payment upfront for the next four weeks, which is a reasonable as far as Jared is concerned. 

He is thrilled at her return, as her presence will occupy Gilfoyle and Dinesh and perhaps disrupt some of the sexual energy and repression bubbling around the house. Jared has never thought of her in such a way, but Carla is compact and beautiful in the way of so few women Jared has ever seen in real life. It was no wonder that he hadn’t been able to help blurting out that she reminded him of Lisbeth Salander, the first time they met. It was the sincerest compliment he could have mustered under short notice. Lisbeth is one of his personal heroes, a genius who saved herself from a cruel and abusive older male authority figure in her life. Jared never blackmailed Gavin Belson, never bound him to a bed and did horrific things to him, but in his darkest moments he certainly fantasized about it. Instead of being brave, like Lisbeth, Jared simply slunk away, leaving his job at Hooli and joining Pied Piper’s ranks. Lured like a child by the piper, perhaps. Or rescued like a princess in a fairy tale, rescued by Richard, who is probably the most unlikely hero of any story. 

“So, you and Richard, have you …” Carla does something obscene with her fingers and mouth, miming various sexual acts in short succession.

“What? No. Never. That would be extremely, inappropriate, against company policy …” Jared feels his face heating up. She can see. She can see right through him, right down to the deepest darkest abyss within. _”This guy fucks”_ bounces around in Jared’s brain. Can everyone see it? Can _Richard_ see it?!

“I’m not surprised. Well, if that changes, let me know, I could use some entertainment.” Carla grins. “Not like Gilfoyle and Dinesh are gonna stop their dance and jerk each other off any time soon. Those two wouldn’t settle their sexual tension if it was the last day on Earth. Morons.”

Jared blinks rapidly, trying to process all of this information. “Entertainment?”

“Yeah. I mean, you’re not my first choice, offence entirely meant, it’d be like watching a pair of chopsticks roll around on a table and I see enough of that shit on tumblr, but like, it’s bound to happen to at least two people in this house, might as well be you two.” Carla nudges him in the side with her elbow. “Fifty bucks you trip onto his lips and he’s too embarrassed to stop you.”

Jared stands up. “I need to leave. This conversation was entirely inappropriate.”

Carla laughs. “I’m just fucking with you, O.J.!” she yells as he stumbles off. 

Jared runs straight into Richard in the hallway.

“Whoa, sorry Jared!” Richard looks up at him, wide eyes that haven’t seen enough sleep. 

Jared stares at Richard’s lips. Chapped from too much nervous licking, probably taste like Red Bull and hangover. Jared aches to kiss him, soothe him, comfort him, make him forget all about the takeover for just a few minutes.

Jared staggers backwards and hits the wall. “My fault, completely my fault,” he mutters, more to himself than to Richard.

“No, that one was totally on me. Kinda stuck in a cloud of my own angst.” Richard smiles weakly. “Can’t see where I’m going.”

Jared wants to embrace him, like that night when he held Richard as he cried. He wants to take care of Richard, like no one else evidently has in recent memory. 

Richard shrugs and heads for the living room, to discuss issues with Carla and the others. 

Jared slinks away to his room, and the SWOT board he can’t make himself destroy. 

~*~

Three days, a bout of car-to-car combat with a gang of rival programmers on the highway, the departure of their ferret-breeding neighbor forever, and so many corporate doublecrosses that heads are spinning still, Jared comes to a decision. 

It’s not one of his best ones, he’d be the first to admit that, but considering his last reckless decision ended up with him working for Pied Piper and contributed to the downfall of Hooli’s evil empire, Jared is willing to take this risk. 

He bursts into Richard’s bedroom, SWOT board in hand, and sets it up in front of the window.

“Jared? What are you doing?” Richard asks. He was coding at the desk underneath his bunk. One of his headphones is off his ear, muffled music plays from it. 

“I wanted to know your thoughts on this.” Jared says, pointing at the SWOT board.

“Oh, Jared, um, I’m not really in the mood for SWOT-ing right now,” Richard glances back to his laptop.

“I think you should take a closer look at this one, Richard.” Jared blurts out before his bravery can flee entirely. He isn’t cut out for this hero business, he knows. But then again, neither is Richard, really. 

Richard takes off his headphones and comes over to squint at the SWOT board. His eyes narrow, then grow wide with shock. His lips move slightly, forming some of the more descriptive words. 

Jared sweats, rubs his hands on his pants, and bites back every frantic attempt at explanations surging up from his throat. 

Finally, Richard turns to stare at Jared. “I … I didn’t know. That you felt like … this.”

Jared gulps. “And how do you feel about … how I feel?” forcing out the words is like coughing up bricks of cement. 

Richard’s face goes pink. “I, um, I mean, if you … I mean, I’m not the CEO … but I’m not gay, I mean, maybe I am, I thought I was in high school, but I like girls but I don’t think I ever stopped liking guys I just stopped thinking about sex at all and … yes. I feel … if you feel, and I feel, and …” Richard shakes his head and looks Jared right in the eye. “Fuck it.” 

Then he lunges forward and kisses Jared. 

Jared’s arms flail before settling against Richard’s shoulders, clinging to him desperately. He tries to steer them against the nearest wall, and only succeeds in knocking over the SWOT board. Richard starts making quick work of the buttons on Jared’s shirt, running his hands all over every inch of exposed pale skin. 

Jared can’t remember the last time a partner wanted him naked. He shoves the thought aside and focuses on Richard. Frantic, anxious, desperate, beautiful Richard. The fragile genius Jared has to protect, somehow, despite not being able to protect himself much at all. 

“Bed?” Richard pants, fumbling with Jared’s belt. 

“If you want.” Jared just wants whatever Richard intends to do next.

“I want what you want,” Richard grabs Jared by the chin. “And if you want to stop, if you don’t want this … I don’t care what we’re doing, you tell me, ok?”

Jared wants to stagger. He wants to cry. He wants to tell Richard that no one, not once, has shown him that kind of consideration before. But he knows that would spoil the moment, this lovely moment, and Jared doesn’t want that at all. 

“Of course.” Jared smiles. “And ... I want us to do this in your bed.”

The climb up is difficult, as they’re trying to shed clothes on the way up. There’s more banged elbows and fumbling movements, but eventually they’re up on the mattress, half-naked and half-hard. 

“What do you like?” Richard asks, pressing a kiss to Jared’s neck.

“What do you like?” Jared counters, daring to stroke Richard’s neck and being rewarded with a contented moan. 

They figure it out, touching each other experimentally and shedding the rest of their clothing. Jared, always prepared, brought condoms and lube in his pants pockets, which solves many of the outstanding issues. 

Long after they’ve collapsed into a sweaty heap, Jared wonders if this is his fairy tale ending. His savoir, Richard Hendricks, fell from his lofty throne, but that enables them to form a relationship. Perhaps not the best fairy tale, but then again, it’s not about a homeless man luring children into a cave to murder them either. 

In the morning, there will be knowing looks from Carla, disgust and crass comments from Erlich, and even Gilfoyle and Dinesh might stop bickering long enough to start a debate about which of them is taking it up the ass at 2am. In the morning, everything could change and Richard could be reinstated as CEO. In the morning perhaps their ferret-breeding neighbor will be back with vengeance in mind. In the morning, Monica might have arrived with a cunning plan to oust the replacement CEO and bring Richard back to his rightful place as the head of Pied Piper. 

For now though, Jared is content to stay curled around Richard on the top bunk, as safe as any castle tower. Maybe he isn’t a princess, and maybe Richard isn’t some knight in shining armor. Still, Jared thinks that they’re going to make it work.


End file.
